Wednesday, January 06, 2010

I started dreaming about making this quilt sometime early in 2009 when the previews for the Figgy Pudding fabric line by Moda started showing up on online fabricshops. Sometime in June, I noticed the fabric was available to buy online, and I called my local quilt shop to ask which Christmas fabric lines they had. They did have the Figgy Pudding line so I went and bought a few fat quarters to get started with. Then I bought more of the fabric when I was on vacation in Utah. I believe I made the quilt blocks and pieced strips on the back with 17 assorted fat quarters and then I purchased additional yardage for the sashing, binding, and solid backing fabric.

The back is made up of pieced strips of my Figgy Pudding scraps, and the brown solid is a Quilter's Only fabric from JoAnn's. It is quilted with aqua colored silk/cotton thread by Mettler. Number 0905 (I had to go back to buy more thread a couple times, plus it is the same thread I used on my mendocino mermaid baby quilt. I have about 5 empty spools with 0905 on them, time to move on to another thread color!) This is the second quilt I've quilted with my new sewing machine, and I have figured out that I need to adjust my top thread tension to around 6.5 or 7 in order for the stitches to come out right.

I thought I had enough of the green damask print to bind the quilt but I ended up a little short, so I put in a few little red sections of binding.

Here's a close up of one of my favorite blocks, and the star. I love the blue Christmas tree fabric so much. And the red and white fabric, too.

This quilt is made from my Simple Squares pattern which is a free tutorial-in-progress. In the coming weeks I will be finishing up the instructions for the sashing and getting the fabric requirements for the larger quilt all figured out, so you can make your own quilts with this pattern. Stay tuned!

Wonderful! Even after spending months with Figgy pudding, I still love it! And I have plenty, so perhaps one of these would be in my future. The back is perfect with the brown and blue thread - mimics the line's brown snowflake print perfectly. And those little accidents that lead to things like bits of red in the green binding...perfect! It makes the whole thing that much more interesting. Great finish!

I'd love to see if the Figgy is still available anywhere. I don't have a Christmas quilt and this would be a great one. I popped over from your interview and am putting you on my bloglines for the tutorial. Thank you.